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Episode 198 - How to Make Marketing a Habit
1.3k Plays1 year ago
Tayler Cusick Hollman, copywriter and co-founder of Enji, is on the podcast today to chat about how to make marketing a habit.
Tayler runs multiple businesses and somehow, she's able to consistently generate content for all of them, and I try to figure out how.
In this episode, we hear about her approach to marketing and how her new software, Enji, can help small business owners in their marketing efforts. We chat about the biggest struggles small business owners face when it comes to marketing their business and how to make marketing a habit.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check ‘em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/make-marketing-habit/. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
Also, we are hosting a FREE 5-day email marketing challenge that will walk you through getting started with email marketing. Sign up for that over at https://daveyandkrista.com/email-marketing/. That will begin on June 5th. But even if you miss it, check out that page for more email marketing resources.
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Transcript
The Power of Consistency in Marketing
00:00:00
Speaker
But when you show up consistently, your audience is going to grow and change. And so those people haven't seen those messages before. And so even though it feels old to you as the business owner, it is very new to a lot of other people. And so it's uncomfortable to be a broken record to a certain extent, but that is a part of the marketing machine and the habits that you're building for yourself.
Introduction to 'Brands That Book Show' and Featured Guest
00:00:29
Speaker
You're listening to the Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies for building engaging brands, crafting high converting websites, and creating reliable lead generation systems for their businesses. I'm your host, Davy Jones, co-founder of two agencies, a brand and website design agency, Davy & Krista, and the digital advertising agency, Till Agency. And I ask questions so you can find answers.
Making Marketing a Habit
00:00:58
Speaker
Taylor Cusa Coleman, copywriter and co-founder of NG is on the podcast today to chat about how to make marketing a habit. Taylor runs multiple businesses and somehow she's able to consistently generate content for all of them. And I try to figure out how. In this episode, we hear about our approach to marketing and how her new software NG can help small business owners in their marketing efforts. We chat about the biggest struggles that small business owners face when it comes to marketing their business and how to make marketing a habit.
00:01:26
Speaker
If you haven't heard of Engie, you need to check it out. It's a new marketing solution that helps small business owners create and execute a marketing plan. If you feel like you're all over the place when it comes to marketing, Engie might be exactly what you need. Also, when you sign up for a free trial and set up your account, Engie will spit out a free marketing plan. Why not give it a shot just for that?
00:01:47
Speaker
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at DavianCrista.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
Free Marketing Trials and Challenges
00:01:57
Speaker
Also, we are hosting a free five-day email marketing challenge that will walk you through getting started with email marketing. Sign up for that over at DavianCrista.com forward slash email dash marketing.
00:02:11
Speaker
A link for that will be in the show notes. That will begin on June 5th. But even if you miss it, check out that page for more email marketing resources. Now, onto the episode.
Launching NG: A Journey of Emotion and Relief
00:02:23
Speaker
Taylor, welcome back to the podcast. You know, to be honest, I was telling Krista, I was like, you know what? I would not be surprised if she bails this week. And that's not to say anything about your character, but I just thought you are crazy for doing this launch week of this big project that you've been working on. How's that been going?
00:02:40
Speaker
You know, but I live and die by my calendar. So if it's on my calendar, I am showing up. I admire that. Yeah, I admire that. But crazy week, you know, how does it feel? You know, I feel like I've been following along the journey. It's been really fun to watch. I really appreciate just as a fellow business owner and
00:02:58
Speaker
You know, to see the updates along the way and you know what you've been kind of wrestling with and trying to figure out and then for it to finally get here. Do you feel like a big sense of relief or do you feel like the to do list is even bigger? How are you feeling?
00:03:13
Speaker
Relief is something that I was not expecting to feel on launch day, but there was a point in the afternoon where it just kind of hit me and I cried some happy tears sitting alone in my office at my desk like a total nerd because it was just so unexpected. I thought that I would just be a mixture of excited and impatient.
00:03:35
Speaker
on launch day, but the relief of actually getting this thing that I've been working on behind the scenes for years out into the wild, it was like, it was. It was literally a relief of, we did it, and it actually is working. So it was unexpected, but a very delightful emotion to work into the mix for the
The Creation of NG: From Copywriting to Tech
00:04:00
Speaker
day.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, well, everything looks so sharp. The website looks great. The emails look great. I mean, everything just looks so buttoned up. Maybe you could fill us in on this two and a half year journey, right? I mean, you've been working on this for almost three years, right? Yeah. And tell us a little bit about the transition from copywriter over to developing this new software company, creating a marketing solution for small businesses.
00:04:25
Speaker
And that's not even all you do. I was getting the list right before I'm like, so what companies are you still running? It turns out people, all of them. So just fill us in. What's been going on since we last chatted? Yeah. So NG is basically a COVID project gone so rogue.
00:04:42
Speaker
It's amazing what it is because that was when I first had the idea for what this thing that I would work on would be. Over the years since I've been self-employed for eight years now, I started this adventure in 2015. I have been a marketing director at a startup, marketing consultant for small businesses and like wedding creative businesses.
00:05:08
Speaker
I focused on copywriting and then I started a stock photography company and then this whole adventure into being a tech founder. When I take a half step back and look at it all,
00:05:24
Speaker
It all fits because there's always this core theme to what I do. I want to make marketing easier for people because it's so hard. There are so many different reasons that people struggle with it, depending on who they are as a person.
Simplifying Marketing for Small Business Owners
00:05:43
Speaker
And so I think my life's work is just to keep chipping away at some of those reasons so that the people who, you know, really wake up every day and pour over, you know, whatever their business is, that there's one less thing that they have to really stress about. And I mean, someone just sent me a DM, one of my friends on Instagram, who's starting another business herself. And she's like,
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's great and exciting, but I was up at 4am because my brain just wouldn't shut off because of the to-do list. That's super overwhelming. And a lot of that is centered around how am I going to build this brand? How am I going to find customers, right? And it's an ongoing concern that we all have, but it's so existential and impactful on our business that I just, I want to genuinely make it as like
00:06:34
Speaker
the least amount of I'm going to freak out over this as humanly possible for people who are on this adventure with us.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, and that's so true what you're saying about all the different pieces connecting, you know, I can totally see that even with, you know, obviously through tailored media, the copywriting, I mean, easy connection to make there, but then source code with the stock photos. And now, NG, maybe you can give us a little bit, just an idea of like what kind of struggles maybe you've experienced with your marketing efforts, which, you know, I think from the outside looking in, honestly, you make it look so easy. All right.
00:07:06
Speaker
But what kind of struggles you've noticed when it comes to, you know, marketing and business as a small business owner, you know, where lots of small businesses, they're operating with small teams. And I know I was talking about this with Krista, like even for our business, we are like our team, it's design heavy. And that's what we do, right? Like we design. But on the marketing side, it's me. So maybe you could speak to that a little bit. And then also, you know, kind of like, you know, how you designed NG with that in mind.
Building Marketing Habits
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, that is something that I hear quite often. They're like, people just say, I don't know how you do it. And I'm not going to lie. I have no kids. I have no pets. My businesses are my life outside of when I'm going to go ski or ride bikes. That's what it's going to say. It seems like you spend a decent amount of time on the slopes though. So you're able to fit leisure in for sure.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yes, I mean my ski day count for the season is 50 days so like I'm not I'm not slacking on that either. I very much prioritize play which is very important to me as a person but you know it's something that I hear quite often is people are just kind of
00:08:12
Speaker
I'm just gonna use the word amazed because it's the first one that came to mind at my capacity to like juggle all these things. And it has been a progression to get to this point where I can keep multiple brands very actively marketed and engaged. It doesn't happen overnight. So no one should have the right like basically the expectation in life is you should not think that something is going to just happen like that.
00:08:37
Speaker
But the thing that really changed for me was when I created a strategy which defined, okay, this is the lane I'm going to live in, and then created tasks that are habitual,
NG's Roadmap and Future Automation
00:08:52
Speaker
right? I'm going to do this all the time, just like every day I wake up and I brush my teeth.
00:08:57
Speaker
because that's how important marketing is to your business. Your dentist is going to yell at you if you show up and you haven't brushed your teeth in months. They're like, what happened here? And so I want people to start thinking about their businesses that way. Did you market your business today? Because if you ate and you brushed your teeth and you showered, cool, you did those things to take care of yourself as a human, now you got to go take care of your business.
00:09:21
Speaker
And so it's not something that happens quickly, but you can overcome the challenge of being the marketing department as one person, like is your, you know, that's our lives. Yeah. And it's hard for a lot of people because a marketing department is a department, right? With all of the seats around the table are people who specialize in different things. So someone specializes in strategy, someone specializes in
00:09:51
Speaker
graphics, you know, other people are really going to dive into the numbers. And so, you know, like, how is it possible or realistic that one person could be all of those people? And not everyone can be all of those people. But I think everyone has the capacity to wear more of the hats than they just innately think that they can.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So as far as you know, while you're developing NG, and I'm excited to get into some of those more, or get into those marketing challenges a little bit more, and talk about creating, I don't know, this marketing habit, the skill to make marketing a habit. What are the major problems you feel like NG is solving? What are the things that if someone were to sign up for NG, they're going to find? And how does it address these different challenges?
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah. So this is very much tied to the work I've done with clients as a marketing consultant. It goes straight to the heart of like why I even had the idea to build software, which for the people that know me or the people who don't basically NG is me as software. And so when I was working with clients to create marketing strategies for them, there was a very consistent
00:11:07
Speaker
phrase that people would say, and this connects to like how you would look at client reviews to do pull quotes to pull into your copy and messaging and whatnot. But I finally put it together that people kept literally asking or telling me on calls, Taylor, I just want you to tell me what to do.
00:11:27
Speaker
Like I said, it took me a while to like, oh, I have heard this so many times from people that there's something there. And so when I think about what we're building at NG, we've got kind of our own little Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
00:11:44
Speaker
for marketing. When I first was having meetings with my partner, I literally drew this out. I was like, here's the pyramid and here are the three tiers to it. The first tier is people want to be told what to do. NG is going to tell them what to do. How we do that is with a marketing strategy.
00:12:06
Speaker
someone comes in, they answer a questionnaire, you get a marketing strategy like that because technology is amazing and that allows us to do that. The next tier is people always want to know, is this worth my time and money? Is this making me money? That's where marketing metrics and KPIs really become an important part
00:12:28
Speaker
of you owning this concept of being the marketing department. We've got things to make that easy for people in there. Then the tippy top of the pyramid is the inevitable question that I always get asked. I'm sure you have been on the receiving end of this too is, can you just do it for me?
00:12:49
Speaker
Like I get it, I get that it's valuable, but can you just do it and like make it appear out of nowhere? And so when I think about the big picture of what NG will be and what we're going to be tackling next,
00:13:05
Speaker
we want to start doing things for people, right? So that it's not just getting them pointed in a direction that's going to help make them money. It's how does NG do a lot of these tasks for people? Because that's one of the biggest roadblocks is just having the time, the actual time to do it. And that's a big roadblock when it comes to marketing.
Transitioning to Tech: Taylor's Personal Journey
00:13:32
Speaker
I've learned my lesson asking tech founders about the roadmaps, you know, but can you give us an idea of what sorts of things that you're, you're hoping Angie will do for marketers? Yeah. I mean, the roadmap to me is the most exciting thing. What we've launched is just our, our MVP, our minimum viable product, which
00:13:51
Speaker
I think is a really robust MVP, but nonetheless, it's just the start for us. Interestingly enough, years ago when I was first, I've still got my notebook of all my random scribbles from two and a half years ago, AI was a part of it. I'm someone who has worked in tech before, I'm surrounded by
00:14:14
Speaker
My husband is older than I am. And so I've got this cohort of friends that are all like, you know, established men in technology. And so I'm just around all of these conversations all of the time. And so artificial intelligence was something that years ago, I was like, dude, this is how we get to that third tier of NG doing things for people is AI.
00:14:36
Speaker
Obviously, it's not as far down the roadmap as it once was. We got to do this now because the last four months have been incredibly transformative on the tech front. But in terms of what we're going to push for, the first thing is integrating with a few platforms that small business owners consistently use. Because that's important, right? It's an important piece to not just have these
00:15:05
Speaker
like siloed pieces of technology. So integrations are pretty much on the tippy top of the list. And then after that, it's the big existential, how do we incorporate artificial intelligence into NG? And, you know, honestly, there's going to be, we will be doing AI copy, but it's really important to us that we're not just like recreating the wheel with things that already exist out there. So we've got ideas about
00:15:32
Speaker
how we can use an AI copy tool in a different way within NG and to totally spill the beans about some stuff. You heard it here first. The first big goal for us is to give everyone the foundational pieces that they need. Things like brand voice and pillar messaging is super key for people. Again, the whole blank Google Doc
00:15:59
Speaker
If you don't know what to input with an AI copy tool, you're going to get trash on the output. Coming up with the right kinds of prompts that are tied to someone's marketing strategy, tied to their customer persona that we already have in their NG account,
00:16:17
Speaker
is going to become really powerful for helping people create those foundational pieces of
Crafting a Marketing Strategy
00:16:23
Speaker
property. But then we want to get into the SEO space to help people figure out what are the keywords that are all tied into this. And then it becomes this cool thing where it's like, oh, well, if we have those pieces, then the done for you part can be NG knows your strategy, your brand voice, your keywords, your customers.
00:16:42
Speaker
And you can literally hit like create blog posts, right? That's kind of the big vision of where I think we're going to end up going and really making things super, super tied to the strategy because that's one of the other things that business owners are super notorious for. It's just like marketing in a bunch of directions and then it becomes herding cats and we want people to stay focused on a particular path.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the things that's most appealing to me about NG as well is just that it being a central place for your marketing resources, you know, and I feel like everything is all over the place, you know, even in our, like, we have pretty good systems, but you know, things are across multiple different platforms and like, you know, I was trying to get a logo for something the other day and I'm like,
00:17:28
Speaker
why can't I find this right now? So I'm excited to have a more centralized place to be able to just know this is where everything is. I love what you went through, that creating a plan, being sort of step one there, and then from there, being able to measure your plan. Because that is an important question. And maybe a question that people don't actually ask enough. They start executing this plan, but they're not really asking themselves, how am I measuring success right now?
00:17:53
Speaker
And it can be difficult to figure out what good measurements are. So to have a tool that helps you focus on those things, I think can be immensely important. And then of course, excited for the done for you stuff as well. But maybe we could talk a little bit about what one of those plans might look like. What should a marketing plan consist of? So somebody who doesn't have a marketing plan, who's like, okay, this sounds really good. What does that even look like? Where should they even start?
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. When I was creating them as a bespoke, which I hate that word, but as a bespoke service for clients, my marketing strategies ended up being 20-page documents.
00:18:38
Speaker
crazy robust, like almost too robust. And so that wasn't what we wanted to do with NG. It's like we need to make this so easily and quickly consumable and understandable for people that having it be this long scrolling thing is like too much, too much.
00:18:56
Speaker
So, but there are some key components to a marketing strategy or a marketing plan, which are, you know, like tomato, tomato, it's all the same thing. But the first one is what are your business's goals and your objectives? And, you know, a lot of people talk about goals, not so many people talk about objectives, but goals are the way we're approaching things.
00:19:21
Speaker
because the internet is a great and terrible place. It'll give you conflicting information all the time. The way that we're approaching goals and objectives, your goals are your big aspirational things. Like, I want to take over the world. Not an actual goal at NG, but a goal that a lot of us emotionally feel like we have. We want to take over the world with our businesses. The objectives then are
00:19:44
Speaker
the more tactical goals that are measurable that you can complete in order to get to the big aspirational one and so you need to have a combination of both because the big picture goal sets your destination.
00:20:00
Speaker
And the objectives are your peepee stops along the road to your final destination. So those are two really important parts of any marketing strategy. Then the next really big one is knowing who your customers are.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's your business and you're doing this for whatever reasons you want to, but your customers are the ones that are going to decide whether or not it's successful or not. So you really need to know who they are, what their problems are, what the solution is that you provide that's directly tied to whatever emotional or logistical problem that they have.
00:20:41
Speaker
And then after that, I like to keep it super simple. Then it's like, here are the marketing channels. These are the places that you're going to focus your efforts. This is one of the other spaces that people really kind of get in their own ways because they think more is better, right? But that is very much tied into the hole. You can't be everything to everyone because then you're nothing to no one. So really having a short list of marketing channels that you're going to focus on,
00:21:10
Speaker
is the last piece of how we're approaching a marketing strategy. And so that then is very much tied to the tasks, which is where the habit building really takes place. But the strategy in and of itself should be like, okay, this is very clear. This is where I'm going, who I'm talking to, and the places that I'm gonna try to do it in.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah. So one thing I want to ask you about is as far as like the marketing channels go, you know, I
Content Creation and Consistency
00:21:41
Speaker
think I agree. That's an area I think a lot of people get really overwhelmed with because there are so many possible channels and people just feel like they have to be everywhere. I think also, you know, there's a lot of
00:21:51
Speaker
I don't know, there's a lot of marketing gurus out there who are gonna say, if you're not doing this, if you're not here, then you're leaving a lot of money on the table, right? So, you know, I guess how should people go about choosing the channels that they're present on? You know, I think just using you as an example, it seems like, and correct me if I'm wrong, like I follow a lot of your updates on LinkedIn and then Instagram. You know, those are two places where I know that you show up. So maybe you could even speak to, you know, why those channels for you.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah. So I mean, why those channels for me, Instagram has been the place that I enjoy showing up the most. I mean, that's the asterisk on all of this is like, Hey, if you don't enjoy showing up on certain marketing channels, that's like a clear sign to maybe just
00:22:36
Speaker
Cut it cuz yeah, you know emotionally you're just gonna resent it These are not gonna motions to to have when it comes to marketing, but you know, I picked Instagram and LinkedIn and then for tailored email marketing is the third one that I focus on
00:22:53
Speaker
And so Instagram is like a place for me to be me. It's very much like the it's not totally unfiltered, Taylor, but it's like 90 percent unfiltered. This is who I am. You know, like I don't hide posts to close friends. It's like if I'm posting it, the world's going to see it. Sure. Good, bad, ugly, silly, whatnot. And so that's where I really like to showcase my personality, because as a service provider, which a lot of people in, you know, who listen to this podcast are service providers.
00:23:23
Speaker
connecting with the person that you're going to work with on a project and pay large sums of money to is important. Yeah. And so I want people to clearly know like, what are you getting into? So like, you know, everyone's fully informed about who Taylor is and, and all that kind of stuff. But then LinkedIn has been a great place as a tech founder to, you know,
00:23:47
Speaker
showcase more of the story of what it's like to be a tech founder. I'm a slightly different version of myself there. I'm not nearly as silly, but there's still some of that in there. And I'm trying to connect with the larger professional community because the people who are on Instagram have a very different reason for being there when you think about LinkedIn. Sure, sure.
00:24:14
Speaker
And then email marketing is just a great way for me to keep people in the know about what's going on. And, you know, I, I'm not one of these people that writes a hundred million email newsletters. Shout out to Sarah Chansey who like, I wake up every morning and there's an email newsletter from her. I'm like, wow, how do you do this? So props to Sarah Chansey for that. But those are the three that I've included in my mix. And so, you know, they all serve a different purpose.
00:24:39
Speaker
they're all talking to similar but different people. That's how any small business owner should be thinking about their marketing channels. It's, what do I need to do in order to achieve my goals? Where does that fit? Where are my customers also hanging out on the internet? That's the big one.
00:25:01
Speaker
Don't decide you're gonna be on TikTok if your customers are like Gen Z or not Gen X. Those two things don't go together. Yeah, yeah. Well, as far as the different channels that you're on go, does that mean you have to create different content for every one of those channels? What does that approach look like? How do you make that manageable for
Centralizing Marketing Resources
00:25:23
Speaker
you? Or is it really creating a post over here, something else for email, something else for LinkedIn?
00:25:30
Speaker
Sometimes it's totally unique content because sometimes that's what makes the most sense. But honestly, I'm a person that manages too many brands. And so you all are going to start to notice, I think if people pay attention, like, oh, I've seen that before. Yeah. You've definitely seen it before because I like wrote an email newsletter and then I'm pulling bits of the email newsletter to turn into
00:25:52
Speaker
an Instagram post or sometimes I'm just swapping out the photo and fully recycling a caption. These are all things that are tools in your toolbox that anyone and everyone should be taking advantage of. The LinkedIn one is harder just because of how I'm using it. I can't really recycle a ton there because it's a little more journal-y. Sure.
00:26:18
Speaker
if that makes sense, but eventually I think I'll get in the point where I'm recycling some stuff there too. Yeah. And I imagine you're reaching a different sort of professional. I mean, to your earlier point over there, you know, maybe a future partner for the business in some way or something like that. So maybe the content looks a little bit different.
00:26:35
Speaker
But I'm glad to hear you say that because I feel like that's another challenge that I think small business owners make for themselves is thinking that every single marketing channel you have, you have to create content specific to that channel. Of course, you do on a certain level, like a platform that requires video, you have to make video, but hopefully you can at least use the same source content. For us, it's a lot of times like our blog post, which is then turned into an email, which is then turned into various social posts,
00:27:01
Speaker
And then even to your earlier point of like people, if they start paying attention, they might see that I've recycled content. You know, I think the truth is that far less people, you know, see our content than we think, you know? And so I think it's good to see the same things over and over again. Like you want to see consistency. And I think even like, you know, one thing that I've been impressed with for NG is like, you know, you've been building that consistency even before launch. And so you just, I think those sorts of things build trust. Like I'm not usually worried that it's like, Oh, I've said this before.
00:27:31
Speaker
The examples we point to all the time are like Dave Ramsey, you know, it's like he says the same things every single show, you know, but lots and lots of people still watch and I think lots and lots of people find value from it.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah. The thing that I think people forget is your customers need to see the same messages repeatedly, right? Because there's the whole, people need to see something seven times, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's valid. That's why consistency is important. But also, if you're doing a good job at showing up for your business, which
00:28:06
Speaker
I got your episode with Candice. I listened to it multiple times because it was so good. And so I have to give Candice credit for the whole show up for your business. But when you show up consistently, your audience is going to grow and change.
00:28:23
Speaker
And so those people haven't seen those messages before. And so even though it feels old to you as the business owner, it is very new to a lot of other people. And so it's uncomfortable to be a broken record to a certain extent, but that is a part of the marketing machine and the habits that you're building for yourself.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, so as far as habits go, you know, creating a habit around marketing, what are some of the things that you do to create that habit?
Understanding Marketing Metrics
00:28:51
Speaker
Habit, you know, for consistency, you know? Yep.
00:28:56
Speaker
make it up new words. You can use that in NG if you want. Cool. I'm going to throw that in there somewhere just for you. It'll be an Easter egg. That's right. I'm excited to find it. Creating habits starts with knowing what is your desired end state? What is your goal? Obviously, creating a marketing strategy to know where you're going is step one with this whole habit-forming thing. But then the next thing is
00:29:20
Speaker
You have to like, it can't just live in your head, right? And it lives in so many people's heads. And that's basically, in my opinion, if it's only in your head, it doesn't exist, right? If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, sorry, everyone, your businesses are the trees falling alone in the woods. So having an actual calendar of tasks,
00:29:43
Speaker
is like step number two. One of the cool things about NG, which my partner was like, I don't really get it. And I was like, just build it. Trust me. Just trust me is cause it's actually kind of hard. It's funny to like learn what's hard to do in tech.
00:29:58
Speaker
because of how many other things it might impact. But we have this concept of repeating tasks in our task calendar, right? So literally, if your habit is you're going to post a reel on Instagram on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you can create a repeating task, like create one task that NG is smart enough for you to set your repeating rules or your recurring rules. And then that one task will show up on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, right?
00:30:28
Speaker
You're going to brush your teeth on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Yeah. So having that to remind you of your habit is important. But the existential part of this is you have to be committed. And if you're not committed, I can encourage you so much and I'm going to try my damnedest
00:30:47
Speaker
to get people to really like accept this is a responsibility of theirs. But I can't force you to be committed. So you got to dig deep and find that somewhere in your own self. And then lastly with the habit building.
00:31:02
Speaker
I think most of us are not swimming in all this extra time. And so we want to become more efficient with what we're doing every day. And the only way that you can become more efficient is by knowing your numbers.
00:31:18
Speaker
Right? And just like I'm sure, you know, when you're working with your clients at Till, knowing your ad analytics to like, okay, well, this is how we need to refine this ad, or we're just going to drop this ad set to increase your ROI on something. It's the same thing with just general marketing. If you can't see where
00:31:40
Speaker
your leads are coming from how much money that's bringing in and then comparing that to how much time and money you're actually spending on the output side of things, then you can't get better at it over time. Marketing metrics, I promise people, it's not as scary as Google Analytics. I've dumbed this down as much as humanly possible so that it's super approachable because the numbers
00:32:07
Speaker
I got so, so excited when I saw them, like this KPI dashboard for the first time. I was like, Oh my God. Oh my God. Everyone needs to use this. This is so cool. It's so easy. It's graphs. It's like, you know, visual. It's not scary, but super impactful. Once you can start to actually see what's working and what's not.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think for a lot of people, they're not going to track it just because they don't have a streamlined way to track it. I mean, we can log into our Instagram dashboard, professional insights or whatever and take a look from time to time, you know, but probably there's few of us that are going to go through the effort of like creating a spreadsheet to do that.
00:32:44
Speaker
So that's I think another exciting thing is for business owners who don't have degrees in statistics or just don't have the time to be actually tracking these things, now you have an easy way to
Managing Expectations and Outcomes
00:32:56
Speaker
do that. My issue when it comes to marketing and new projects, and this is, it's helpful to have a wife who will just, that you work with that will call you out on it, but is I'll sit down and I'll start a project and it'll be very narrow in scope. I want to go and I want to do this.
00:33:13
Speaker
But then I'm like, you know, writing the blog post or writing, doing whatever. And then I'm like, oh, well, actually this could be this, this and this, you know? And then, you know, I start working on it and then it keeps expanding a little bit. And then all of a sudden it gets to a point where I'm like, you know, I just feel so overwhelmed with what it is. I'm like, this is going to take me three years.
00:33:30
Speaker
to do, so it just never gets done, you know? And I think with a system like NG that would keep you on track, you know, you've already stated what the outcome is, that's what I've found is for me, like, I have to work to that outcome, and if I want to turn that blog post also into a YouTube video or also into a five-day, you know, series or whatever, that needs to come after I finish this actual task. So I think that's one of the most appealing things of having a system to track those things for me.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's funny, a lot of service providers, we complain about scope creep when our clients do it to us, but when we do it to ourselves, but it's a cool idea. Yeah. But yeah, it's super easy to get stuck in that more mindset, which there are certain things that more is better, but
00:34:23
Speaker
If you are overwhelmed at all by marketing, I promise you less is better, right? I promise you. Yeah. You know, cause we spend more time on marketing than most people, right? Most people have maybe, maybe an hour or two a week and you and I are probably like spending half of our time on it. So again, like I actually haven't talked about this or mentioned it in this conversation, but like,
00:34:51
Speaker
Being realistic with yourself is the best gift you can give to yourself and your business and your sanity and your impact. Because if you are realistic with your expectations and your goals and what you think you're going to get out of something,
00:35:10
Speaker
You actually start to get positive reinforcement as you're doing things as opposed to you set the bar too high and you're trying and you're just constantly feeling like you're failing, which is just negative reinforcement. Eventually, you're just going to be like, I'm just going to go stick my head in the sand because
00:35:29
Speaker
This doesn't feel good. It's not working. So don't get in that. My, you know, my tiny little therapist that lives on my shoulder. Shout out to Dr. Corey, you know, she's like, don't put yourself in that kind of loop. It's not a productive loop. So yeah, that's my.
00:35:46
Speaker
my 60 Seconds of Therapizing. Yeah, I think it is something that everybody needs to hear. If you don't have a marketing strategy, if you're not showing up anywhere on social media, one of the best things you can do is just start to post every day or a few times a week even. And that's enough for right now. And then as you build that habit, you can build on that. It might be like, okay, well, I posted three times this week. This post got the most engagement. So I'm going to write a blog post about this topic. I think that's an easy way to build on successes and start building that marketing habit.
00:36:16
Speaker
As far as signing up for NG, how do people do that?
Signing Up for NG
00:36:20
Speaker
Go to the website, ng.co, E-N-J-I, not .com. That domain is owned by a foreign company who wants $20,000 for it. So we didn't spring for the .com, guys. But everyone can try NG for free for 14 days. And honestly, there's no restrictions on what you get access to in that trial. So you can dive in there. Everyone should start with creating their marketing strategy.
00:36:50
Speaker
Even if you're moving through it at a leisurely pace, it probably would take you five minutes. You can get your marketing strategy for free. You can see the tasks that automatically get recommended and dropped on your calendar. You can start playing around with the KPIs and uploading your brand assets for all the creative folks.
00:37:09
Speaker
Also, because it makes my heart happy. And I literally have unsubscribed from software because it was too ugly. You can brand NG2 your brand colors. So it's all right. It's for the people that that's important to. It's very important. In the MVP. Impressive. Impressive.
00:37:29
Speaker
Again, things that my partner was like, I don't get it. And I was like, just trust me on this one. Just make it happen. But yeah, so I'd love for everyone to at least jump in and try it out for 14 days. But honestly, the whole goal for what I'm trying to do with NG is to make marketing manageable for all of us. Because
00:37:50
Speaker
Like so many people have these amazing businesses and everyone deserves a shot at turning it into the big dream that they've had. And so marketing is just, it's one of the things that gets in the way and I want it to not get in the way for people anymore.
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Well, go and check that out. I mean, heck, just in the trial, you get a free marketing plan, you know? So why wouldn't you go and give that a shot? Real quick, before we go, what's been the biggest surprise starting the tech company?
Unexpected Challenges of Starting a Tech Company
00:38:22
Speaker
Oh my goodness. And feel free to answer, I'm putting you on the spot. Feel free to answer that however you'd like, you know, biggest surprise, biggest learning. Yeah, the biggest surprise is like how many lonely days I've had.
00:38:38
Speaker
Even though I have some advisors, they all have jobs. They're not available all the time when I'm stuck on this thing. There were a few days that were a rude awakening of me just, this is my office here at home and I have spent way too much time in it over the last few years, but it was shocking at how many days I would stare at the wall right here.
00:39:06
Speaker
I like cuz my brain would shut down because of the amount of deep thinking that i was trying to do and i i'm not a person that's used to that i'm a person that's used to like high output days everyday i mean i should come as a surprise to no one i am like.
00:39:26
Speaker
a high energy extrovert fiery person so that whole experience was very strange to me where it was almost like you know the sound effects in star wars when the death star is like turning down that's literally what like my brain was doing is like no.
00:39:45
Speaker
But that's a part of building something big and doing the hard thing. And honestly, if people have those days while they're working in or on their own businesses, it's super normal to just have days where you're like, I got nothing. I got nothing today. And then that's okay. Then you should go out and ski or ride your bike.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and that's what I feel like for tech company, and there's definitely other kinds of companies out there that are like this, it just takes so much effort just to ship the MVP. And so I can totally see this. Well, we're grateful that you've launched it. I'm also grateful that you've shared your journey along the way. It's been fun to watch. I know this is only beginning in a lot of ways.
00:40:27
Speaker
And, you know, at some point you'll be able to buy that ng.com domain name, you know, show it. I don't know if you saw show it recently was able to, it was a similar situation. You know, they started to show it.co and, you know, eventually they're able to grab show.com. So that was their April Fool's post. Yep. Yep. So I didn't see that. I was like, Oh, I get it. I get it.
00:40:51
Speaker
Well, awesome. Thank you so much for your time. And for anybody listening, we'll have all the links in the show notes so that you can head over there. You can start your free trial of NG and get a free marketing plan. Thanks for tuning in to the Brands at Bookshelf. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianChrista.com.